I live in California, and these peeves may be particular to the state. This is the only state where I've encountered these problems.

I'm tired of hearing that everything from "natural" sources is far superior to synthetic while there is no debate over whether the damn product works or not. I'm tired of hearing that a "natural" source is safer or "chemical free." Everything is made of chemicals, you. idiot. Too much water will kill a person. It's all about moderation and I've met my quota for your non-sense today. Go away.

I'm tired of hearing about holistic medicine. Yes, valuable medicinal compounds have been isolated from naturally occuring sources, but once isolated, why use the diluted natural source? Why not take the synthetic that you know actually does something instead of it with 20 other compounds that don't?

I'm tired of hearing about veggetarian/veganism. Biologically I am an omnivore. We don't know enough about the human body to go messing with its requirements so why don't you just follow the system that worked for the last 10 thousand years you pompous bitch.

I'm tired of hearing about the evils of farming. There are too many of us on the planet for everyone to hunt down their own furry dinner, therefore farms are necessary. Should they be as nice to the animals as possible? Sure, but that doesn't mean I should stop eating them all together. And yes, I am comfortable killing my own dinner, so I have no moral qualms paying someone else to do it for me.

I'm TIRED of hearing about the evils of bST milk. bST is COW growth hormone, not human growth hormone. It occurs naturally in milk and isn't secreted in any higher levels in milk from a supplemented than in milk from a non-supplemented cow. Furthermore, it's protein. What happens to protein when you eat it? That's right, moron, you digest it, which means it isn't a hormone any more, it's just amino acids. Even if you got it in your system whole, it's still COW hormone and can't influence your tissues. GO READ A GOOD BOOK.

I'm tired of being made to feel guilty for crimes done by people with the same skin tone as me. I wasn't there. In most cases, I wasn't even born yet. Moreover, my family didn't have anything to do with it. Leave me alone!

I feel better now. Thank you for reading

Evil Captor

12-06-2004, 08:56 PM

Oooh, that was good. Now do the beatniks. Those bongo drums gotta be annoying.

Pullet

12-06-2004, 09:01 PM

Yeah! Good for nothings! What the hell do they need with two drums? One drum worked just fine for my father and his father before him! They got something against my father?

Jerks

aeropl

12-06-2004, 09:06 PM

I agree with most of your post except the animal parts. Most of the hippies I've encountered were not vegetarian, which is a hypocritical scenario in my mind. I've always thought of them as more naive than idiots.

Have you ever been to Asheville, N.C.? There's one place NOT to go if you're not a fan of hippies.

Ukulele Ike

12-06-2004, 09:16 PM

And how about those damn flappers? Shameless hussies, showin their knees! Drinkin gin and smokin coffin nails!

Cat Whisperer

12-06-2004, 09:20 PM

Hippies are against farms? I'm from Saskatchewan, and it never occurred to me that there are people in the world against farms. Where do they think the food they eat comes from - the bread/egg/meat/vegetable fairies?

Pullet

12-06-2004, 09:21 PM

Thank you, aeropl, I need a list of places to avoid due to heavy hippiness. Although maybe there's a different breed of hippie there. Here in CA, you're just not yet fully converted if you're a meat-eating hippie. In time, you'll be one of us. And, if it is naivete, then it's by choice. The conversations I've had with them follow the same pattern of conversations I've had with the blindly religious.

"Blah Blah stupid proposal Blah"
"Well, that sounds rather incorrect to me and here is the evidence why I think so"
"<select formula answer>
a. Your well balanced and plainly researched opinions just demonstrate how wrong you are so let me restate my first proposition without adding any new information.
b. I can't believe you're such an idiot as to believe something different from me. I'm a very open minded person but I hate people who don't believe the same things as me
c. You're lack of faith disturbs me. <Flees up nearest redwood.>"

I was really hoping to find some well balanced folk in California, but they've been few and far between.

Cat Whisperer

12-06-2004, 09:23 PM

Oh yeah, and I agree with your rant. There are a lot of silly people in this world.

Bryan Ekers

12-06-2004, 09:24 PM

Those Know-Nothings know nothing, damnit!

asterion

12-06-2004, 09:24 PM

I think Cartman put it best:

"Don't do drugs, because if you do, you're a hippy. And hippies suck."

OleOneEye

12-06-2004, 09:27 PM

Even if you got it in your system whole, it's still COW hormone and can't influence your tissues.

Er, not to notpick, but according to this (http://www.expasy.org/spotlight/back_issues/sptlt009.shtml) cow hormones can influence your tissues- diabetics used to be given cow insulin. Also, not sure whether the hippies object to rBST in milk because they think it's bad for people, or because they think it oppresses poor helpless farm animals.

Otherwise, good rant. ;)

Pullet

12-06-2004, 09:31 PM

Hippies are against farms? I'm from Saskatchewan, and it never occurred to me that there are people in the world against farms. Where do they think the food they eat comes from - the bread/egg/meat/vegetable fairies?

The ones in CA begrudgingly admit that farms are necessary, but only for the growing of vegetables and only in an organic manner without Genetically Modified plants or sophisticated irrigation. And that's only because they just don't have the time to do it themselves.

We did organic farming. We did it for the period of time between the development of agriculture and the discovery of insecticides. It didn't work real well. It kind of worked, but it also led to ergot (http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/LECT12.HTM) poisoning and probably shortened a lot of people's life spands and wasn't able to support the number of people modern agriculture supports. Never mind how few people it now takes to feed so many, thereby freeing up the rest of us to paint paintings and research cures for cancer and whatnot.
Do I think that pesticides should be used minimally, sure. But don't label them all as evil. Again, moderation.

I just can't take the attitude that they know everything about a topic and are totally correct in being angry over it at people who are actually in the business.

P.S. Flappers can go flap themselves, hussies!

manhattan

12-06-2004, 09:39 PM

c. You're lack of faith disturbs me. <Flees up nearest redwood.>"
I confess I couldn't work up too much of a lather against a hippie who quotes Darth Vader -- s/he'd have too many coolness points built up from the start.

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Chartruse VW Microbus."

WeRSauron

12-06-2004, 09:45 PM

Hear, hear!

Another proud omnivore checking in!

WRS/Thû

Bruce_Daddy

12-06-2004, 09:52 PM

Have you ever been to Asheville, N.C.? There's one place NOT to go if you're not a fan of hippies.
Paging Left Hand of Dorkness. Paging Left Hand of Dorkness.

:D

Zoe

12-06-2004, 10:02 PM

Pullet: The ones in CA begrudgingly admit that farms are necessary, but only for the growing of vegetables...

Wow. That's sad. I have a cousin in California who grows raisin grapes, almonds, pistachios and maybe still some cotton. Will those damned hippies force his farms to close? And what about his dairy farm at Chowchilla? He has to grow only vegetables now?

It's obvious that none of these hippies ever read a book or went to college. They have apparently figured out some way to make money by getting pesticides banned.

Is there some way to get in on the clean air/clean water concession?

that_darn_cat

12-06-2004, 10:02 PM

Never mind how few people it now takes to feed so many, thereby freeing up the rest of us to paint paintings and research cures for cancer and whatnot.

And make reality TV shows. ;)

Kyla

12-06-2004, 10:09 PM

Pullet, where the heck do you live? I lived in California for 23 years and never met anyone quite like you're describing. Trust me, I've met my share of vegans (I went to school in Santa Cruz, for heaven's sake), but I've never heard anyone advocating ending farming. Do they want California's economy to collapse even more than it already has?

I've definitely heard people argue for eating organic and non-genetically engineered foods, but not just Californians. Europeans, in particular, are against genetically altered produce. Maybe they're just a bunch of crazy hippies too?

Nobody

12-06-2004, 10:43 PM

Thank you, aeropl, I need a list of places to avoid due to heavy hippiness.
You can add Eugene Oregon to your list.

Tracy Lord

12-06-2004, 10:56 PM

You can add Eugene Oregon to your list.

And Ashland, Oregon. You go to see a play at the Shakespeare Festival and you can smell the hemp wafting across the grass of Lithia Park.

Scribble

12-06-2004, 11:02 PM

The OP isn't really a rant against vegetarians or proponents of organic farming, is it? It's really more a rant against vegetarians and pro-organic agriculture people who don't provide good arguments to support their positions on these topics, but who are willing to get pretty rude and confrontational about ideas that they haven't thought through so well, themselves.

Positions on topics don't become ridiculous just because the person holding those positions acts like a jerk or a weirdo. They don't even become ridiculous just because the holder of that position can't provide a good supporting argument for the position. Positions become absurd when there simply is no strong, logical supporting argument for them.

I don't identify as a hippie. And I've never lived in California. While I get the feeling that some of the hippie claims mentioned in the OP don't have much basis in reality, some of these ideas might not be total booshwah.

As someone who's learned a lot more about agricultural ecosystems than she ever intended to, I can say that there are some pretty good reasons to support organic farming. Looking for alternatives to the pesticide treadmill isn't a bad idea. Maintaining the microbial diversity of soil--something some organic farming techniques seem to promote and heavy synthetic nitrogenous fertilizer use seems to inhibit--is a pretty good thing, too. (I can elaborate on these claims if anyone would like me to.) BTW--organic farming doesn't preclude the use of pesticides. It simply precludes the use of synthetic pesticides, though the line between "synthetic" and "natural" pesticides is getting blurry very quickly these days.

There are also some pretty good arguments for vegetarianism. On the other hand, there are also some decent arguments for staying omnivorous. And I'm not sure we're really right to say that omnivory is "the system that worked for the last 10 thousand years." Hinduism has been around for quite a while now, and it's very possible to be healthy on an observant Hindu vegetarian diet. For a lot of human history, meat from things you really had to hunt with spears, bows and arrows, etc. accounted for only a small proportion of the total calories and protein ingested by lots of humans. If anything, the "system that worked" for most people in at least some areas of the planet has been relying on food from plant and insect (!) sources for most of the time, with meat from other sources as a rare delicacy, if it was available at all. I'm saying all of this as a non-vegetarian. I eat almost anything that doesn't run away quick enough. ;)

The "we shouldn't have farms" idea strikes me as a little out in left field, though. I'd be interested in hearing any good supporting argument for that claim, but I strongly suspect that there isn't one.

Scribble

12-06-2004, 11:09 PM

Hoo boy, was that a long and wordy post. I have to learn to edit before I submit a post. :smack:

Ogre

12-06-2004, 11:39 PM

Might as well add Scottsboro, Alabama to the li...

Aw, who am I kidding? If corn bled, they'd blow it off the stalk with high-caliber weapons around here.

Zoe

12-07-2004, 12:45 AM

I once knew a Swamp Fox from Scottsboro. I'll bet he's down at the Lost Luggage Farm doing his Christmas shopping.

Scribble, good post.

mack

12-07-2004, 12:46 AM

I'm tired of hearing about holistic medicine. Yes, valuable medicinal compounds have been isolated from naturally occuring sources, but once isolated, why use the diluted natural source? Why not take the synthetic that you know actually does something instead of it with 20 other compounds that don't?
Thought-provoking, but it has nothing to do with holistic medicine.
We did organic farming. We did it for the period of time between the development of agriculture and the discovery of insecticides. It didn't work real well.

As evidenced by the expansion of humanity over the last 10,000 years.

We don't know enough about the human body to go messing with its requirements so why don't you just follow the system that worked for the last 10 thousand years you pompous bitch.
You mean the system of organic farming and natural sources, bitch?
Should they be as nice to the animals as possible? Sure,
But they aren't.

I'm tired of being made to feel guilty for crimes done by people with the same skin tone as me. I wasn't there. In most cases, I wasn't even born yet. Moreover, my family didn't have anything to do with it.
Why do you feel guilty then?

iggy popov

12-07-2004, 12:55 AM

It seems like every hippy I come into contact with is a shady, hypocritical, thieving,self centered bastard. Anyone else ever notice this?

Ludovic

12-07-2004, 01:10 AM

It seems like every hippy I come into contact with is a shady, hypocritical, thieving,self centered bastard. Anyone else ever notice this?Not really. Prolly cause the ones who look like your average Joe Salaryman, minus the suit, don't set off your Hipdar. Just like all homosexuals are falaaaaaaming. ;)

Hedda Rosa

12-07-2004, 01:52 AM

Lemme guess, you live in Humboldt?

Gorsnak

12-07-2004, 02:15 AM

Should they be as nice to the animals as possible? Sure,
But they aren't.
Farmers are exactly as nice to their animals as makes most economic sense. Due to the essentially unlimited competition between farmers, and the extremely limited competition between suppliers of farm inputs and processors of farm products (go ahead, look up how many companies are involved in processing chickens), farms operate on razor-thin margins. The Darwinism of the marketplace dictates that any farmer who expends resources on being nice to the animals in ways that don't contribute to gaining weight/producing milk/eggs/whatever will turn a lower profit than the guy who doesn't, (i.e., he'll be deep in the red) and will go under and sell out, leaving only the guys who look only at the bottom line.

Fortunately, in most cases animals are treated reasonably well for the simple reason that stressed animals don't gain weight at the rate that content animals do. However, there are obviously many corners cut.

As long as we retain a capitalist system, though, it's not going to stop. There's no money in being nicer to the animals than is strictly necessary for productive purposes, and there's no economic room on the farm for imposing unnecessary costs on oneself.

duffer

12-07-2004, 02:51 AM

Might as well add Scottsboro, Alabama to the li...

Aw, who am I kidding? If corn bled, they'd blow it off the stalk with high-caliber weapons around here.

This has to be one of my favorite posts I've ever seen.

Great rant Pullet. From what I've seen in CA in all the times I've been there is that generally west of Sacramento is Hippy Paradise, while almost everything east is much more attractive to those of my ilk.

Now if we can just get those involved with genetically altered agriculture to add a circulatory system to corn. And cucumbers. Man, I loves me some cukes. :D

Really Not All That Bright

12-07-2004, 03:28 AM

I'm tired of hearing that everything from "natural" sources is far superior to synthetic while there is no debate over whether the damn product works or not.
I was listening to a "performance enhancement" commercial on the radio the other day extolling the all-natural origins of the product it shilled.

Most "all-natural" products are natural in the same sense that being beaten to death with a tree branch is "death by natural causes".

duffer

12-07-2004, 03:34 AM

Most "all-natural" products are natural in the same sense that being beaten to death with a tree branch is "death by natural causes".

That reminds me. Cyanide is all-natural and organic. Anybody have some? :eek:

blowero

12-07-2004, 04:23 AM

I just want to say that the thread title cracked me up. You would have had more points if you used the word "smelly" in there, though.

jjimm

12-07-2004, 04:39 AM

I'm tired of hearing about holistic medicine. Yes, valuable medicinal compounds have been isolated from naturally occuring sources, but once isolated, why use the diluted natural source? Why not take the synthetic that you know actually does something instead of it with 20 other compounds that don't?That's homeopathy you're talking about, which is total arse. However, holistic medicine is a style where the entire person, and their history is considered, rather than symptoms in isolation. It can be practised using standard western medical techniques.

I'm not surprised you're confused, though, since the "if it's alternative it must be good" crowd have monopolised the term, and you also find regular herbal treatments labelled as "homeopathic" when they're not.

LouisB

12-07-2004, 05:25 AM

It seems like every hippy I come into contact with is a shady, hypocritical, thieving,self centered bastard. Anyone else ever notice this?
Just a damn minute, bud. I used to be a hippy and I was never, under any circumstances, shady. I was always too skinny to provide much shade and no one ever tried to sit in my shadow.

Harborwolf

12-07-2004, 05:27 AM

Add Harbor Springs and Petoskey Michigan to the list. Despite the presence of large numbers of gun toting and wealthy right wingers, half the bloody restaurants and small grocery stores tout their "organic" wares and hire only the white and dreadlocked. Two whole towns are starting to smell like Otto, and the idea of having a person who clearly cannot wash his hair preparing my food makes me want to stop eating.

It's turning me cranky I tells ya.

Oilcan

12-07-2004, 05:40 AM

That reminds me. Cyanide is all-natural and organic. Anybody have some? :eek:

Technically, cyanide is an inorganic compound (somewhat less complex than limestone) that stops oxy-reductive metabolism.

I wouldn't want to jeopardize anyone who can spell, so you can't have any.

duffer

12-07-2004, 05:44 AM

Technically, cyanide is an inorganic compound (somewhat less complex than limestone) that stops oxy-reductive metabolism.

I wouldn't want to jeopardize anyone who can spell, so you can't have any.

I think I had a temporary loss of the ability to remember what organic means. :smack:

But it is natural, right?

jjimm

12-07-2004, 05:50 AM

But it is natural, right?Lovingly extracted from the pits of organically grown bitter almonds, holistic hydrogen cyanide was said by the ancients to cure lumbago, gout, and cancer, by rendering the patient naturally dead. Do you doubt the wisdom we have lost due to the rise of soulless western medicine?

Siege

12-07-2004, 06:05 AM

Oh hell, if you're talking about how anything all natural is good for you, I've got a few suggestions: hemlock, foxglove, deadly nightshade, yew. Just ask Agatha Christie!
There's a Miss Marple novel in which the murder weapon is the water a bunch of flowers was put in. The water leached the natural toxin out of the flowers. If I could remember the species, I would have listed it.
For that matter, I'm pretty sure botulism is all natural, and ergot produces some mighty interesting hallucinations before you die.

Nice rant!
CJ

Scissorjack

12-07-2004, 06:57 AM

And how about those damn flappers? Shameless hussies, showin their knees! Drinkin gin and smokin coffin nails!

Jazz and cubism! Jazz and cubism! That's where the rot started!

Scissorjack

12-07-2004, 07:22 AM

Now if we can just get those involved with genetically altered agriculture to add a circulatory system to corn. And cucumbers. Man, I loves me some cukes. :D

Another bete noir: almost ALL food is genetically altered, except maybe fish, and that's just because the bastards keep swimming away. It's called selective breeding - you think apples the size of your fist occur in nature, Sally Dewdrop? You think ears of corn aren't the size of your thumbnail for a reason, Jeremy Starshine? Gah - we've been genetically altering food since the Paleolithic era: that's why I have the time to sit here and type this instead of foraging in the marshes for particularly slow-moving frogs to eat. Agriculture = food surplus, = leisure time, = civilisation, = The Pit.

Jesus god, the one reality show I would watch would be a bunch of hard-core greenie vegans set loose naked in the bush to forage for food, shelter and survival itself. Voted off? Sorry, Gaia Rainbow, you've been starved off. Oh, and Tarquin Morningstar has just been frozen off. Don't forget to tune in next week, when our castaways set aside their principles and resort to cannibalism...

Flipshod

12-07-2004, 07:22 AM

As to getting back to nature, this quote:

“Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home.”

GK Chesterson

catsix

12-07-2004, 09:06 AM

I found it rather funny when a militant vegetarian told me in college 'You wouldn't eat meat if you had to kill it yourself.'

Especially since I had deer jerkey in my backpack. Deer jerkey that came from a deer I shot. I told her that. She was stunned. She extolled the virtues of yogurt that comes from 'free range' and 'organic' cows. I said 'It doesn't get more free range than a deer that lived all its life as a wild animal in the forest.' She left in a huff.

dre2xl

12-07-2004, 09:21 AM

I agree with most of your post except the animal parts. Most of the hippies I've encountered were not vegetarian, which is a hypocritical scenario in my mind. I've always thought of them as more naive than idiots.

Have you ever been to Asheville, N.C.? There's one place NOT to go if you're not a fan of hippies.

Well, granted, we do like natural stuff, but that's countryfolk belief... we're not walking around in tie-dyed t-shirts or anything. For the most part, we trust our farms and natural remedies more than we trust either corporations or government.

And, you don't need a scientific reason to like organic food. It simply tastes better, especially the meat. Yum. (Eaten a mass-farmed Red Delicious apple lately? Might as well as be eating cotton balls.)

Also, it's true that synthetic chemicals may do a much better job of whatever they're designed for--but they're also a lot harsher. I'm serious about growing my hair out, for example, and there's near-unanimous agreement on long hair sites that sodium/ammonia laurel/laureth sulfate shampoos are way too harsh, especially for curly hair. Many of those people wash their hair no more than once a week with a natural, weaker shampoo and rinse out the build-up with a homemade vinegar rinse. It's much safer on the hair.

Regarding hormones--you can't ignore the fact that many girls are now undergoing puberty at age 5 or even earlier. Hormones are a valid concern.

catsix

12-07-2004, 09:25 AM

How much of menarche is dependent upon the necessary body weight to sustain a pregnancy?

Without a high enough percentage of body fat, a woman or girl will not menstruate. So does puberty start ramping up as the body fat percentage increases?

With vegan- and vegetarianism now being commonly associated with 'hippies', whatever that word means anymore, it's amusing to recall that one of the most well known communes near SF back in the day was called....

the Hog Farm Commune!!

JRDelirious

12-07-2004, 09:34 AM

... foxglove, deadly nightshade ... As per the OP, once we refine out digoxin and atropine, THEN we can use that in a controlled dosage to save our sorry asses.

However I must also join in with pointing out that the OP does indeed to be aimed at specifically "Idiot Hippies", as opposed to the more mainstream just-plain-mellow type that I can get along with. I must also question the way it was phrased as if there's a blanket opposition to ALL farming -- what they obviously oppose is corporate- or commercial-type farming, not farming per se. Sure, a lousy policy proposition, but hardly an opposition to "farming", period.

jlzania

12-07-2004, 09:46 AM

Farmers are exactly as nice to their animals as makes most economic sense. Due to the essentially unlimited competition between farmers, and the extremely limited competition between suppliers of farm inputs and processors of farm products (go ahead, look up how many companies are involved in processing chickens), farms operate on razor-thin margins. The Darwinism of the marketplace dictates that any farmer who expends resources on being nice to the animals in ways that don't contribute to gaining weight/producing milk/eggs/whatever will turn a lower profit than the guy who doesn't, (i.e., he'll be deep in the red) and will go under and sell out, leaving only the guys who look only at the bottom line.

Fortunately, in most cases animals are treated reasonably well for the simple reason that stressed animals don't gain weight at the rate that content animals do. However, there are obviously many corners cut.

As long as we retain a capitalist system, though, it's not going to stop. There's no money in being nicer to the animals than is strictly necessary for productive purposes, and there's no economic room on the farm for imposing unnecessary costs on oneself.
A subject near and dear to my heart.
We raise pastured poultry-layers and broilers and while we don't invite the chickens in for tea-we are, I like to think, extremely "nice" to our birds.
It only makes sense.
By rejecting the mass production model, we eliminate the need to sublimate their diet with antibiotics or growth hormones.
By using the chicken 'tractor' model, we can maintain healthy, weed free pastures without the use of expensive herbicides and synthetic fertilizers.
By slaughtering the chickens ourselves, we control the cost and cleanliness of the butchering process.

Mass poultry farmers have to spend a minimum of $150,000.00 to erect a confinement house.
The big name chicken companies supply both the feed and the chicks.
If the chicks die, and you lose money on a production run, too bad.
The profit is marginal, the work is labor intensive and many mass poultry farmers
go out of business in a few years.
Many of these houses are subsidized by small business loans that are defaulted on when the farmer has a bad few years.
The chickens are raised in abominably unhealthy conditions, laborers in factory farms are coming down with equivalent of black lung from the fecal dust and the environment suffers from the impact of massive quantities of chicken shit.
Rhode Island had a problem two years ago with its’ ground water being contaminated by arsenic from the chicken farmers.

Of course, pastured poultry is more expensive and requires a commitment from the consumer as well.
You actually have to cook our chicken-it doesn't come in a nifty box, ready to be heated up and eaten in 10 minutes.
That said, a 5.5 lb chicken is $11.00 but will supply a family of four with 2 meals and the means of making an excellent chicken soup or stock..
And our chicken is much richer in Omega-3s and vitamins.
Eggs from pastured hens can contain as much as 10 times more omega-3s than eggs from factory hens as well as much higher amounts of vitamin E.
If you are what you eat, it follows that you are also what the animal eats.
And it's easier to prevent health problems by incorporating a healthy diet into your life, rather than to cure them.

Indygrrl

12-07-2004, 10:01 AM

Many of those people wash their hair no more than once a week with a natural, weaker shampoo and rinse out the build-up with a homemade vinegar rinse. It's much safer on the hair.

And I'm sure that combination of a week of head grease coupled with vinegar smells delightful. Ick. What's the point of having long hair if it's greasy and reeks of vinegar?

dre2xl

12-07-2004, 10:18 AM

The hair isn't "greasy". There's a reason for the old 100 brush-strokes adage... it spreads the natural oils from scalp to ends, resulting in healthy, shiny, non-greasy hair. Americans bathing everything, everyday, is the abberation, not the norm....

As for the vinegar, you might as well as ask why wear hairspray if it smells so nasty. The smell evaporates pretty quickly when the hair dries.

Indygrrl

12-07-2004, 10:24 AM

The hair isn't "greasy". There's a reason for the old 100 brush-strokes adage... it spreads the natural oils from scalp to ends, resulting in healthy, shiny, non-greasy hair. Americans bathing everything, everyday, is the abberation, not the norm....

As for the vinegar, you might as well as ask why wear hairspray if it smells so nasty. The smell evaporates pretty quickly when the hair dries.

Hairspray and shampoo smell good because they are scented with lovely aromas.

All I know is that neither I nor most of the women I know could go a week without washing their hair without it becoming greasy and smelling like dirty grease. Something about that hair oil smell is disgusting to me, but then I don't care for patchouli or burning sage either, so different strokes.

Cat Whisperer

12-07-2004, 10:31 AM

Hairspray and shampoo smell good because they are scented with lovely aromas.
<snip>
Lovely FAKE aromas. (Sorry - my inner hippie snuck out for a moment.)

Talking about genetic modifications, I believe sheep are one of human society's earliest genetic experiments. As for the danger of eating genetically modified food, I believe Pullet was right in his OP about that - when you digest foods, you get amino acids, glucose, and fatty acids. Your gastrointestinal tract doesn't care if there are fish proteins in with your tomatoes - if it can digest it and use it, it digests it and uses it.

Cat Whisperer

12-07-2004, 10:34 AM

Dang it, I forgot about a lovely response to idiot hippies regarding genetically modified foods. Saskatchewan is leading the world (I believe - no time to research it right now) in genetically modifying wheat crops (drought resistant strains, high salt tolerant strains, etc.), which are contributing to feeding third world countries in a big way.

Indygrrl

12-07-2004, 10:35 AM

Lovely FAKE aromas. (Sorry - my inner hippie snuck out for a moment.)

Fine by me. Most of those essential oils smell like ass. I'll take my perfumes any day. "Real" is highly overrated. :D

dre2xl

12-07-2004, 10:43 AM

Well, to be fair, the people who're washing their hair once a week or less are for the most part the ones who have unbelievably long hair: well below rearend-length. Their hair can accomodate a week-plus's worth of natural grease spread from end to scalp... if the grease gets too much for the hair, then of course you're going to have to shower it. Eh... I'm rambling on a topic I brought up only to point out that there are cases where natural products are superior to synthetic ones.

For more examples of how natural shampoos can work better for people, go to http://www.naturallycurly.com --lots of people, including African Americans, have tamed their curly hair into gorgeous ringlets-to-be-envied with a natural, even "no poo" (no shampooing at all) routine. Chemicals are harsh, so many people with sensitivities find a better solution in natural products. Toothpaste, soap, detergent, you name it.

In any case, your sentiment's right... different (hairbrush) strokes for different people. :-)

iggy popov

12-07-2004, 10:44 AM

That reminds me. Cyanide is all-natural and organic. Anybody have some? :eek:

For the hippies, I'll make some in my basement.

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-07-2004, 10:47 AM

For the hippies, I'll make some in my basement.

Heh. I'm bookmarking this for the next time someone talks about how Christians are the only fair-game group for attacks on the Straight Dope. At least the ignorant attacks on Christians don't usually include ha-has about murdering them.

Daniel

slortar

12-07-2004, 10:48 AM

Heh. I'm bookmarking this for the next time someone talks about how Christians are the only fair-game group for attacks on the Straight Dope. At least the ignorant attacks on Christians don't usually include ha-has about murdering them.

Daniel

Hippy.

iggy popov

12-07-2004, 10:48 AM

Heh. I'm bookmarking this for the next time someone talks about how Christians are the only fair-game group for attacks on the Straight Dope. At least the ignorant attacks on Christians don't usually include ha-has about murdering them.

Daniel

Who said anything about murder? I was just going to put it in a gift basket for them.

slortar

12-07-2004, 11:08 AM

Hippy.

Perhaps I should've added a smiley to that...

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-07-2004, 11:12 AM

Perhaps I should've added a smiley to that...
Don't worry--I snickered. And I'm not offended, since after a few years, the patchouli builds up a layer even better than thick skin.

At the same time, while I'm far too geeky to be a real hippy (I play Dungeons and Dragons, ferchrissake), I've never really understood the hatred folks have for hippies, or the vitriol. It seems to me like hating Quakers or something: puzzling.

Daniel

Fuji Kitakyusho

12-07-2004, 12:03 PM

The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Chartruse VW Microbus."

"...shovels and rakes and implements of destruction..."

Siege

12-07-2004, 12:05 PM

I think it has something to do with the aura of smug superiority, coupled with a certain degree of inate ignorance some of them broadcast as do some of the Christians who get in trouble here. It's sort of like they're thinking or saying "Oh, you poor, misguided, doomed creature!" as I sink my teeth into a delicious ham sandwich or waxing on about how all natural things are good as I polish off a mystery novel. Frankly, If I think someone's sneering at me whether it's because of my diet or my form of worship, I'm not going to think well of them.

By the way, catsix, beautiful response to the vegetarian. Normally, I'm against rudeness, but, if one is being harangued, there's a lot to be said for a good riposte!

Lots of people wash their hair only once a week -- especially those who have it done in a salon.

When I was growing up, a vinegar rinse was standard for brunettes to make the hair shine. It was lemon juice for blonds. You did rinse it out and did't let it dry in your hair! We also used mayo. We didn't have regular "conditioners" easily available to us back in the Dark Ages.

Ukulele Ike

12-07-2004, 04:00 PM

God fucking damn it!

It's hippie!

HIPPIE!

-- Uke, cranky aging hippie editor

kimera

12-07-2004, 04:21 PM

Washing your hair only once a week?! :eek:

I have incredible amounts of hair, I've seen only maybe 2 or 3 other people that had hair comparable to mine. I wash my hair every single day using only the cheapest shampoo and conditioner and I get nothing but compliments on it. But maybe my hair just really likes me.

As for the OP, I currently live in California and I have yet to encouter anyone saying anything like that. I look like a hippie and hang out with a lot of liberals, and even the real hippies (by 'real' I mean, live basically on the beach where they smoke weed, dance and play music all day and alll night) I've met have been meat-eaters.

Then again, California is a huge state and there may be more crazies in your areas.

Of course, pastured poultry is more expensive and requires a commitment from the consumer as well.

am I the only one who accidently read that as "pasturized poultry"?

-lv

Liz

12-07-2004, 04:42 PM

Washing your hair only once a week?! :eek:

I have incredible amounts of hair, I've seen only maybe 2 or 3 other people that had hair comparable to mine. I wash my hair every single day using only the cheapest shampoo and conditioner and I get nothing but compliments on it. But maybe my hair just really likes me.
Do you get charged twice as much at the salon? Because I've got more hair than anyone I've ever met, and I do. Oh, and are you curly or straight? [Hee.]

Washing mine more than once [twice, at the most] a week turns it into a wrathful demon that cannot be tamed. Once a week does very well for me.

Oh, and to the poster who said hair gets greasy after a week -- maybe if you've got thinner or silkier hair. Mine doesn't look greasy or smell bad. There's a lot [lots and lots] who don't wash their hair more than once a week.

MaxTheVool

12-07-2004, 05:04 PM

Let me be the 4th or so person to say that I've lived in California my entire life and have NEVER encountered anyone with an attitude like the one you describe.

Furthermore, I have a family of cousins who are absolutely positively hippies (they produce and perform in environmentally-themed musical theatre, have children named "Sierra Wildrose" and "Joyful Raven" and met in a commune during the summer of love), and they are meat eaters who, while passionate in their beliefs about, say, global warming and the evils of Bush, are not the slightest bit condescending or snotty about it. In fact, they're some of the hardest working, most decent, friendly, generous, sweet people I know.

So I give the OP's rant two big thumbs down. And, like Left Hand of Dorkness, I'm going to remember this thread the next time someone starts talking about how it's the liberals who have a dismissive and stereotyping attitude towards their political opponents.

alimarx

12-07-2004, 05:23 PM

Heh. More fer me... :)

kidchameleon

12-07-2004, 05:34 PM

Technically, cyanide is an inorganic compound (somewhat less complex than limestone) that stops oxy-reductive metabolism.

I wouldn't want to jeopardize anyone who can spell, so you can't have any.

I don't know where you took Chemistry, but in all my schooling cyanide is organic , you know, containing a carbon atom as well as it's buddy a nitrogen. I have a jar of potassium cyanide sitting in the next lab over and there's some NaCN around here somewhere...

God how I hate that 'organic' phrase. No one does inorganic farming, unless you're talking about Mortons. Keep using 'organic' and I'll keep mocking you, dirty hippy!

Nunavut Boy

12-07-2004, 05:38 PM

Well, you certainly can't get any less hippie than where I'm at. It's actually one of the attractions. I've got a sealskin parka!

Christ, all the people had to eat up here for a LOOOONG time was meat!

Pullet

12-07-2004, 05:45 PM

Holy crap. That's the last time I let my thread sit unattended overnight. It exploded!

OleOneEye: IIRC diabetics were injecting the cow insuline, not eating it. Therefore, the insuline was not digested. Again, IIRC, insuline is a fairly simple hormone and may be very similar in structure between cows and humans. Growth hormone is complicated. If anyone knows for sure, please correct me.

manhattan: I couldn't resist the quote. If I found a hippie who quoted Darth Vader, they would be instantly redeemed in my eyes, too.

that_darn_cat: reality shows-the pinnacle of development :)

Zoe, Kyla: I'm in Davis. I think that pins it down. Maybe I'm giving the crazies more notice because I'm involved with the ag industry. It seems like there's just people everywhere here insisting that farming be done in such a way that only the high middle class will be able to afford food.
IIRC, animal rights issues have made it so unprofitable to raise chickens in Europe that many chickens are imported from Asia, where standards aren't as stringent. Then Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/12/birdflu.wrap/index.html) happened.
Like I said, though, this is just my personal experience.

Scribble: You're right, I'm mostly upset with people who hold arguments but don't have a strong base for doing so, or who don't research their opinions before they go preaching to others. I know the entire orgainic farming community doesn't do this and I'm probably running into a cluster of nut jobs. But they still irritated the hell out of me. I'm all for finding balance and looking at alternatives, but only if the alternatives actually do something. I can't stand people who prefer the alternative just because it's an alternative. I hope that's makes sense.

Mack: Farming: What Gorsnak said. Also, I screwed up my numbers, sorry. But the idea still holds. The ability for large segments of the population to be supported without themselves having to farm is a recent development helped by improved agricultural methods. This is something that was less so before modern agriculture. This should not be forgotten. Diet: omnivorism is the way that has worked. Culture: Everytime someone talks to me about the plight of X ethnic group they are trying to make me feel guilty by association. Maybe this is not your experience, but that's what's happened to me. If you want to talk more, email me.

Duffer: circulatory system to corn? My mind reels at the idea of a veiny cucumber, you naughty person :o

jjimm: thanks for the clarification. That does indeed seem to be what's happening. Again, seems to be a symptom of the blind leading the blind. Only I'm tired of being blind.

dre2xl: I had heard about early starts in puberty, but not that early. Got a source? I'm curious, not ment as challenge. It might be body weight like catsix mentioned. And like I said before, I'm all in favor of doing the best of both worlds. Just can't stand the people catsix has also met

Sorry, El Cid Viscoso, you are indeed a hippie. Just don't be an idiot hippie. Once again, I'm not trying to insult people who find different way to do things that work, I just can't take the dismissive, uneducated, pompous attitude some of them have.

Okay, I promise to keep up now and have shorter posts. And all y'all with the unwashed hair are creeping me out.

PinkMarabou

12-07-2004, 06:08 PM

Do you get charged twice as much at the salon? Because I've got more hair than anyone I've ever met, and I do. Oh, and are you curly or straight? [Hee.]

Washing mine more than once [twice, at the most] a week turns it into a wrathful demon that cannot be tamed. Once a week does very well for me.

Oh, and to the poster who said hair gets greasy after a week -- maybe if you've got thinner or silkier hair. Mine doesn't look greasy or smell bad. There's a lot [lots and lots] who don't wash their hair more than once a week.

To further add to the hijack here, I have VERY thick curly/wavy hair as well. I wash mine about every 3 days with a conditioner rinse on the days I don't shampoo. I also have very sensitive skin, so anything with a lot of perfumes (herbal ess.) I can't use, I'll be miserable for weeks. So I found one that works well for me and I've stuck with it. My hair is far better manageable this way. It's not like you don't get it wet (which some people won't do that either, they use talcum on their roots to soak up oil and blowdry out), you just don't have to shampoo. Too many chemicals on my beautiful locks. ;)

As to the OP, I hate preachy people regardless of what group they belong to. I consider myself a modern-day hippie. I'm not vegan or even vegetarian, I don't own a bunch of "natural" things, I am a hippie in my heart. I like the human rights activist part and the animal rights, amongst other things . . .

Try not to paint with such a broad brush here, there are plenty of good people who aren't as extreme.

dre2xl

12-07-2004, 06:34 PM

http://www.drmcdougall.com/newsletter/nov_dec97.html

The relevant tidbit:

At age 3 years, 3% of African-American and 1% of white girls showed breast and/or pubic hair development, with proportions increasing to 27.2% and 6.7%, respectively, at 7 years of age.

It could be that we're eating too much food, period, but plenty of skinny kids are developing earlier too. It's also interesting to note that a lot of hair products targeted to African Americans contain plenty of estrogen.

*After wandering through a lot of shady scare articles, dre2xl gets up and pours the milk down her drain... she's lactose intolerant anyway...*

Pullet

12-07-2004, 07:01 PM

Thanks for the link, dre2xl, but this bit ruins the credibility of these authors for me:

Remember how disruptive your sex drive has been to your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Now imagine forcing those same overpowering emotions upon a child of 9 or 10 years old. As a direct result of eating the rich Western diet, children are now having to deal with all the problems of puberty, at an age far younger than we were originally designed to mature. The consequences are many of our children are emotionally disturbed and physically injured, and we have chaos in our classrooms.

It implies that
1. kids are being beat up for going into puberty. Possible, but common?
2. the only cause for classroom disturbance is hormones.

I can't find the article they site, but I'm interested to know exactly what it said. These guys could be misconstruing.

Besides, grades 4 and 5 are when my school did sex ed. Didn't make us riot or stop us from being average 9 and 10 year olds. IIRC from the gym shower, that's about the time some of the girls were entering puberty. Not that I was examining them closely. (PS, I'm female)

digging around on PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed), a HUGE database of scientific journals, it seems to me that a large portion of early puberty cases are related to some other organic problem, like hypothyroidism. Obviously, doing a little searching doesn't equal a literature review. I'm hoping one of the medically minded dopers will weigh in. But maybe I should move that to GQ.

A recent study conducted by the Pediatric Research in Office Settings network provided evidence that girls in the United States, especially black girls, are starting puberty at a younger age than earlier studies had found, but the reasons for this are not known

<snip>

Factors other than obesity, however, perhaps genetic and/or environmental ones, are needed to explain the higher prevalence of early puberty in black versus white girls.

So, girls are indeed entering puberty earlier, and this early puberty isn't entirely attributable to weight...

I'm no hippie, but it seems quite reasonable to me that you absorb what you eat... including growth hormones. Yes, it's cow growth hormones, but as others have pointed out, humans can utilize cow insulin at the very least. :)

The Frankenfood stuff, however, is total bull as anyone who has watched that Penn and Teller BullShit! episode knows. What difference does the DNA present within food make, if the food is otherwise chemically harmless?

In any case, once you go organic or small farm meat, you'll have a hard time going back. It's like going back to McDonald's after eating a nice restaurant steak burger. I just wish my local grocery store didn't equivalate organic to vegan--there's no meat in the hippie section. :(

Pullet

12-07-2004, 07:44 PM

Very interesting. Thanks, dre2xl.

I think I've worked through my annoyance now. thanks to everyone who read my very first pit thread!

CyberHippy

12-07-2004, 07:53 PM

God fucking damn it!

It's hippie!

HIPPIE!

-- Uke, cranky aging hippie editor

Dictionary.com says:

3 entries found for hippie.
3 entries found for hippy.

hip·pie also hip·py n. pl. hip·pies

A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society, especially one who advocates extreme liberalism in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

hip·py n.

Variant of hippie.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Just a little nitpick on the vegetarian thing: I'm a vegetarian. Stopped eating meat when I'd just turned 13, survived the 'most important growth etc' years just fine.

Also, I'm vegetarian for sort of two-fold health reasons: Mostly, because of some various health issues I'd developed while still eating meat, and also because it makes me a lot less likely to eat fast food. IMO, that fast-food aspect in and of itself makes vegetarianism incredibly healthy.

Granted, this is coming from the person who, today, had a package of ramen for lunch, and just ate a pack of Pop-Tarts for dinner, and I see nothing wrong with that.

Gorsnak

12-07-2004, 08:18 PM

A subject near and dear to my heart.
We raise pastured poultry-layers and broilers and while we don't invite the chickens in for tea-we are, I like to think, extremely "nice" to our birds.
It only makes sense.
By rejecting the mass production model...[snip]
of course, pastured poultry is more expensive and requires a commitment from the consumer as well.
Oh, absolutely there's a niche market for meat raised in ways other than least cost per pound fashion. I'm not opposed to that at all. But it is, as you note yourself, more expensive, and the fact of the matter is that most consumers aren't willing to pay a premium for free range chicken. A few small operators can do very nicely abstaining from the mass intensive livestock model. But only a few, and they have to stay small. That's the simple forces of economics at work, and it ain't gonna change anytime soon.

For the record, the family farm (brother slowly taking over from Dad) has never been run on the mass production model, and is now moving into bison production, which is decidedly opposed to that model. But I'm well able to recognize that not everyone can operate that way.

aeropl

12-07-2004, 09:35 PM

Shhh!
aeropl is right. Asheville is full. Go away.

Nope, I love Asheville. In fact I will try my best to move near there when I get out of college. The fact remains that Asheville is full of hippies. Not necessarily a bad thing unless you are the OP.

slortar

12-07-2004, 10:45 PM

God fucking damn it!

It's hippie!

HIPPIE!

-- Uke, cranky aging hippie editor

Only a damn hippy would spell "hippy" that way.

*Slortar sadly shakes his head as he pencils Ukelele Ike in at the bottom of his "damn hippy" list*

kimera

12-08-2004, 03:34 AM

Do you get charged twice as much at the salon? Because I've got more hair than anyone I've ever met, and I do. Oh, and are you curly or straight? [Hee.]

Washing mine more than once [twice, at the most] a week turns it into a wrathful demon that cannot be tamed. Once a week does very well for me.

I don't go to salons. In fact, that's why I have this much hair. For a while I was too poor to afford a haircut so I just cut it myself, and since there is so much of it and I am so bad at cutting a straight line, I just stopped doing anything but my bangs. Then a guy who owned his own salon walked into my work and went spastic over my hair and was more than willing to cut it for free.

Thankfully, I have wavy hair. If I had curly hair, I would have to cut it because it would just be too impossible to work with. It gets a lot curlier when it is shoulder length, but now it is too heavy to be curly at all.

People are always amazed that I can take 15 minute showers. I just brush my hair out before hand, put the shampoo on my scalp only and run my fingers through my mane. Of course, it can't get over all the strands which may be why the mane looks better than the scalp part.

I would try the washing it once a week route, except that I have no idea where I'd stick it when I took a shower/bath. It's too heavy to stick up in a bun without tons of effort and scrunchies/bobby pins/hairties/etc.

duffer

12-08-2004, 03:56 AM

Only a damn hippy would spell "hippy" that way.

*Slortar sadly shakes his head as he pencils Ukelele Ike in at the bottom of his "damn hippy" list*

I always thought hippys were supposed to be laid back and easygoing.Relax hippys, take a breath. Embrace your hippyness. :D

CanvasShoes

12-08-2004, 05:17 AM

I was really hoping to find some well balanced folk in California, but they've been few and far between.
Well there ya go then. California? Strange folkses there. :)

elucidator

12-08-2004, 05:45 AM

Yeah, those idiot hippies.

Tree huggers, you know. Let me clue you in, spud. When that last tree goes, you're going with it.

Dumb fucks. Trying to tell you that a good doob of home-grow is better than several stiff shots of Johnnie Walker Red. Chivas Regal, Thunderbird, Mad Dog 20/20, no matter what the Playboy Advisor says, its all the same shit. Spend a weekend in an emergency room sometime, count the number of patients treated for marijuana overdose, compared to the dumb shmucks who wrapped thier oversized car around a stubborn tree because they drove home from the bar just one time too often.

Tried to tell you that a craving for money is a piss-poor foundation for a society. So who rips off your granny's Medicare money? Who makes up cartoon characters to sell your kids poison that they know will kill them? Who builds a car with a fatal flaw and consults the spreadsheets to figure out if it makes better sense to fix it or to pay the lawyers to defend against wrongful death? Love Canal? Bhopal? Enron? Idiot hippies or white guys in suits?

Tried to tell you that finding a way to get along was, in the long run, a better plan than sending your best and brightest to kill or be killed, that all your guns and tanks won't protect you from a Big Idea. Oooops, you did it again! Which hippies in the Pentagon do you blame?

Work less, live better, we said. But you were too smart for that, you knew that a headlong pursuit of loud, shiny crap was the Meaning of Life. You knew that when you lay on your last bed, and reflected on a life spent in The Office, worrying about The Office, and taking pills and drinking trying to forget The Office....ah, now there is a life worth having, with any luck, you can send you kids to a school where they can learn to do exactly the same thing. Unless something goes wrong, and The Office fucks you and forgets you. Because The Office does not love you.

Yeah. Idiot hippies. Lucky you guys are so much smarter.

duffer

12-08-2004, 06:19 AM

Ewan McGregor gave a much better soliloquy in Trainspotting. (Well, I guess Irvine Welsh wrote it better) Either way.

Earthworm Jim

12-08-2004, 09:11 AM

<Takes The Cid's personal inventory>

Vegetarian unless he kills it.
...
Sweet fancy fragrant Nag Champa, I must be a Hippie!

Sorry, El Cid Viscoso, you are indeed a hippie. Just don't be an idiot hippie. Once again, I'm not trying to insult people who find different way to do things that work, I just can't take the dismissive, uneducated, pompous attitude some of them have.
I have to disagree. If Cid's out there killing stuff, he's not allowed to be a hippie. It's somewhere in the by-laws, I think.

kidchameleon

12-08-2004, 09:22 AM

Zoe, Kyla: I'm in Davis. I think that pins it down.

Yikes! There's a Co-Op on campus, ripe grounds for breeding hippies. Of course, they don't seem to comply with the city's no-smoking laws very often....

It is possible to have the necessary percentage of body fat to begin puberty without being obese.

Frank

12-08-2004, 09:31 AM

Sorry, El Cid Viscoso, you are indeed a hippie.

Ha-Ha! Better move to Boulder, El Cid.

gobear

12-08-2004, 09:34 AM

Trying to tell you that a good doob of home-grow is better than several stiff shots of Johnnie Walker Red. Chivas Regal, Thunderbird, Mad Dog 20/20, no matter what the Playboy Advisor says, its all the same shit.

That sentence shows you to be an uncivilized barbarian; Chivas Regal is smooth and mellow. And if you cannot appreciate the taste of a good Shiraz or a Pinot Noir, I feel sorry for you. Marijuana gets you high, but it has no taste and it makes you cough and spit up phlegm. Plus sharing joints is downroight unsanitary.

Spend a weekend in an emergency room sometime, count the number of patients treated for marijuana overdose, compared to the dumb shmucks who wrapped thier oversized car around a stubborn tree because they drove home from the bar just one time too often.

Apples and oranges. There's no such thing as marijuana overdose, but you know that. And I daresay that people get ripped to the tits and crash cars on all kinds of substances.

Tried to tell you that a craving for money is a piss-poor foundation for a society.

Tell that to Ben and Jerry or Phish.

So who rips off your granny's Medicare money?

The junkies downstairs.

Who makes up cartoon characters to sell your kids poison that they know will kill them?

R. Crumb.

Who builds a car with a fatal flaw and consults the spreadsheets to figure out if it makes better sense to fix it or to pay the lawyers to defend against wrongful death? Love Canal? Bhopal? Enron? Idiot hippies or white guys in suits?

And who launches the class action lawsuits to remedy those sins? Guys in suits. Hippies don't go to law school 'cos they're too busy selling falafel in concet venue parking lots.

Tried to tell you that finding a way to get along was, in the long run, a better plan than sending your best and brightest to kill or be killed, that all your guns and tanks won't protect you from a Big Idea. Oooops, you did it again! Which hippies in the Pentagon do you blame?

Again, peace work is doen by edcated liberals in suits, not by hippie burnouts.

Work less, live better, we said. But you were too smart for that, you knew that a headlong pursuit of loud, shiny crap was the Meaning of Life. You knew that when you lay on your last bed, and reflected on a life spent in The Office, worrying about The Office, and taking pills and drinking trying to forget The Office....ah, now there is a life worth having, with any luck, you can send you kids to a school where they can learn to do exactly the same thing. Unless something goes wrong, and The Office fucks you and forgets you. Because The Office does not love you.

Neither do food stamps, the hippie's currency of choice.

Sorry, dude, but the real work of the 60s was done by folks like Ralph Nader, Ralph Abernathy, Mark Rudd, Cesar Chavez, and not a hippie among them. The civil rights and anti-war activism of the 1960s largely carried out by black clergymen and white middle class college students. All the hippies did was to beg for spare change and smoke dope in the Haight.

elucidator

12-08-2004, 09:54 AM

Well, that depends, Gobear, on whether you're talking about the original phenomenon, a la Haight Ashbury (I was there. Were you?) or the larger context of a counter-cultural movement. The actual hippies or the people who were accused of being hippies. Amongst my ilk (got ilk?) the term "hippie" was a mild derogatory, acceptable amongst one's own, people engaged in such lazy, unproductive pursuits like starting food co-ops. You get stoned after you unload a truckload of organic groats.

I would have thought that you might have been a bit more sensitive about slinging around the stereotypical slurs. Wrong again, huh?

jlzania

12-08-2004, 10:00 AM

Oh, absolutely there's a niche market for meat raised in ways other than least cost per pound fashion. I'm not opposed to that at all. But it is, as you note yourself, more expensive, and the fact of the matter is that most consumers aren't willing to pay a premium for free range chicken. A few small operators can do very nicely abstaining from the mass intensive livestock model. But only a few, and they have to stay small. That's the simple forces of economics at work, and it ain't gonna change anytime soon.

For the record, the family farm (brother slowly taking over from Dad) has never been run on the mass production model, and is now moving into bison production, which is decidedly opposed to that model. But I'm well able to recognize that not everyone can operate that way.
I realize that I have a big stake in the concept of the small sustainable family farm but I think it's a model that we must adopt in the future for two primary reasons.

Putting totally aside the ethical reasons for not eating an animal that has been raised in torturous conditions, mass factory farming has a devastating impact on the environment.
Think the manure 'lagoons' of the Carolina's,the impact of feed lots, and the ground water contamination in Rhode Island.

The other issue, for me, is the quality of the food that's found in your local supermarket.
Beef and poultry raised in factory farms lack vital nutrients.
You just don't get the Omega-3's and vitamins that you need to remain healthy.
And there's something nasty about eating a chicken that sat in a chlorine bath for 4 hours after processing.
We call in washing the bird in a fecal soup.
Eggs are extremely porous and the pristine white eggs that you buy in the store have also been bleached.
Call me crazy but I just can't believe that including chlorine in your daily diet is a good thing.

I don't think that it's just a coincidence that health care is now the biggest industry in America today.
Put plainly, we're were buying for .99 a lb isn't good for you and can't sustain a healthy body.

I'm amused when I get the argument that pastured raised poultry and eggs are just too expensive.
We all make choices as to what we want to spend our money on and I've found that, quite often, the same people that won't spend $2.00 a dozen for eggs are perfectly willing to buy soda pop and eat fast food 5 times a week.

Good on your brother, Gorsnak.
Tell him to see about getting a listing on eatwild.com
It's a great free resource for spreading the word.
He might also want to check out raising grass fed beef too.
There's a growing market for that as well.

Maus Magill

12-08-2004, 10:27 AM

A subject near and dear to my heart.
We raise pastured poultry-layers and broilers and while we don't invite the chickens in for tea-we are, I like to think, extremely "nice" to our birds.
It only makes sense.
By rejecting the mass production model, we eliminate the need to sublimate their diet with antibiotics or growth hormones.
By using the chicken 'tractor' model, we can maintain healthy, weed free pastures without the use of expensive herbicides and synthetic fertilizers.
By slaughtering the chickens ourselves, we control the cost and cleanliness of the butchering process.

My parents belong to a co-op which uses this model. They get the best damned eggs I'd ever had. Since we'd stayed with them over Thanksgiving, Fang won't eat eggs, I guess they're not as good as the ones at Grandma and Granddaddy's.

Of course, pastured poultry is more expensive and requires a commitment from the consumer as well.
You actually have to cook our chicken-it doesn't come in a nifty box, ready to be heated up and eaten in 10 minutes.
That said, a 5.5 lb chicken is $11.00 but will supply a family of four with 2 meals and the means of making an excellent chicken soup or stock..

The Thanksgiving turkey was pastured (I keep reading that as Pasturized). It took two people to break its wings so it would fit in the fry pot, and my father an additional ten minutes to carve. The white meat was dark, and the dark was nearly black. The appearance was a little off-putting, but, boy, was it good.

That being said, I agree with Cartman:
Hippies. Everywhere. They say they want to save the Earth, but they just smoke pot and smell bad.

gobear

12-08-2004, 10:28 AM

Well, that depends, Gobear, on whether you're talking about the original phenomenon, a la Haight Ashbury (I was there. Were you?) or the larger context of a counter-cultural movement. The actual hippies or the people who were accused of being hippies. Amongst my ilk (got ilk?) the term "hippie" was a mild derogatory, acceptable amongst one's own, people engaged in such lazy, unproductive pursuits like starting food co-ops. You get stoned after you unload a truckload of organic groats.

Well, I was not in the first wave of hippiedom (I started first grade in August of the Summer of Love), I was definitely a pot-smokin', Grateful Dead followin' freak flag flyin' granola cruncher in my day.
I'm not denigrating the counter-culture of the day, but I'm not going to let you play revisionist historian without a rebuttal. And let's be honest here--hippies didn't call themselves hippies, but "freaks." They dug on love and peace and for a moment the movement was beautiful--to groove to Bird on a cloud of lysergic love, to see the universe in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour. Sure, there were attempts to live in egalitarian harmony, like the Diggers and the Family Dog did.

But by the time the Human Be-In kicked off the Summer of Love in '67, all that was dying. Speed and heroin moved in, loser kids from around the country stareted to emulate the trappings but not the ethos of the freaks, and it all went south very fast.

What's worse, the groovy love and cosmic groove of the hippie transformed into the superstitious New Wave garbage infesting popular culture. All of the chakra/atrology/crystal nutjobbery is your lot's doing. You're also responsbile for inflciting toneless New Age music on the world. Your generation spawned Yanni and Windham Hill, and for that alone you should be embarrassed.

I would have thought that you might have been a bit more sensitive about slinging around the stereotypical slurs. Wrong again, huh?
Cry me a river, grandpa. Hippiedom didn't do dick to affect the civil rights movement or the peace movement, and it was positively retrograde in regard to feminism and gay rights. That's not stereotypes, that's history.

OTOH, you did give us the Dead, so all is forgive.

gobear

12-08-2004, 10:33 AM

And Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention had something to say on the topic on their Sgt. Pepper parody, We're Only In It For The Money,
"I'm completely stone/I'm hippy and I'm trippy/I'm a gypsy on my own/I'll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back home".

jlzania

12-08-2004, 10:47 AM

And Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention had something to say on the topic on their Sgt. Pepper parody, We're Only In It For The Money,
"I'm completely stone/I'm hippy and I'm trippy/I'm a gypsy on my own/I'll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back home".
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that 1) I still play that CD and 2) I know all the words.
And I forget which counter-culture figure said "All I got from the hippies was bad dope and the clap."

That said, I was young and impressionable and in Berkely in the early 70's and there was still a wee bit of magic in the air.
For me, it was extremely liberating knowing that I had alternatives-that I didn't have to want the life that my parents had so carefully constructed.

elucidator

12-08-2004, 11:29 AM

Well, I was not in the first wave of hippiedom (I started first grade in August of the Summer of Love), I was definitely a pot-smokin', Grateful Dead followin' freak flag flyin' granola cruncher in my day....

I take it you regard yourself as much improved, now.

...I'm not denigrating the counter-culture of the day...

Oh, you most certainly are.

...But by the time the Human Be-In kicked off the Summer of Love in '67, all that was dying. Speed and heroin moved in, loser kids from around the country stareted to emulate the trappings but not the ethos of the freaks, and it all went south very fast....

This part you got right. But you blame the originators for the sins of the imitators.

...Your generation spawned Yanni and Windham Hill, and for that alone you should be embarrassed....

Who?

...Cry me a river, grandpa. Hippiedom didn't do dick to affect the civil rights movement or the peace movement, and it was positively retrograde in regard to feminism and gay rights. That's not stereotypes, that's history...
OTOH, you did give us the Dead, so all is forgive.

I neither want, nor need, your forgiveness, puppy. Don't forget, in your self-righteous froth, that stereotypes are truth to those believe them, much as history is in the eye of the interpreter. Blaming all New Agey weirdness on "hippies", about whom you know squat, is like blaming rap music on Shakespeare.

But if your ignorance gives you comfort, you are welcome to it, who has done so much for the cause of truth and justice, who better to judge?

gobear

12-08-2004, 11:55 AM

I neither want, nor need, your forgiveness, puppy. Don't forget, in your self-righteous froth, that stereotypes are truth to those believe them, much as history is in the eye of the interpreter. Blaming all New Agey weirdness on "hippies", about whom you know squat, is like blaming rap music on Shakespeare.

But if your ignorance gives you comfort, you are welcome to it, who has done so much for the cause of truth and justice, who better to judge?
Boy, I think I have never seen you in full-on Outraged Dignity mode. "Self-righteous froth"? Now that's projection as a defense mechanism if I ever saw it. Sorry, gramps, but I got your number and you know it. You can live in denial if you wish, but New Agey spaciness descends directly from the 60s counterculture. Your lot's legacy of superstition and alternate religion were responsible in a large part for the anti-rational streak in 21st century America. Still, the societal experiments you conducted back in the day were worth exploring. Moreover, you missed the bit where I praised the original angel-headed hipsters.

"They dug on love and peace and for a moment the movement was beautiful--to groove to Bird on a cloud of lysergic love, to see the universe in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour. Sure, there were attempts to live in egalitarian harmony, like the Diggers and the Family Dog did."

Certainly, the love and peace vibe generated by the hippies influenced the culture at the time and has left an enduring legacy in our culture and language. Note my use of "vibe," a word coined by the hippies. But the truth remains that hippies were spectators, not participants, in the pivotal events of the day, well, except rock concerts. Woodstock was a perfect example of hippie behavior. A for-profit event was hijacked by a mob of ticketless freeloaders, and the two men who financed the event lost their total investments.

Although I will give you the Levitation of the Pentagon. That was cool.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 12:26 PM

I feel responsible because I started the thread.

I've said repeatedly that it is the "idiot" half of "idiot hippie" that pissed me off. Once again, if you can find an alternative way of doing something that works better, fantastic. More power to you. However, I can't stand people who preach a philosophy when they themselves have not researched it thoroughly. That goes for hippie, pubbie, Christian, or martial arts fanatic.

I shall provide an example (this is the same example I posted on another thread):

I work at a veterinary clinic. One day we had a client who had covered his cat in EUCALYPTUS OIL to get rid of fleas because he heard it was a more natural alternative to the very safe chemical products on the market. After we stoped his cat's seizures, we carefully explained how everything is made of chemicals and just because you can get it out of a plant doesn't make it safe to eat. We also had to explain how cats are different from people and things safe for people are not always safe for cats.

That man was an idiot. Instead of asking someone with training and experience, he allowed himself to be mislead by other idiots. He and his cat are better now, but his behavior at that moment is exactly the sort of behavior that pisses me off.

Am I clear now?
If you and Gobear want to keep debating the '60's go ahead. I'm happy that my thread has started a discussion.

And thanks Gobear for taking up elucidator's challenge.

elucidator

12-08-2004, 01:49 PM

Challenge, schmallenge. Its all viewpoint on a phenomenon that can't even be defined, much less debated. I was there, I saw some stuff, I'll tell you or I won't, don't mean shit to a tree. Gobear rented a video of Hair, so he knows all about hippies, I kinda like Elton John music and John Wayne movies, so I know from gays. Its all apples and orangutans.

(Yeah, John Wayne. You didn't know?......)

gobear

12-08-2004, 01:55 PM

Challenge, schmallenge. Its all viewpoint on a phenomenon that can't even be defined, much less debated. I was there, I saw some stuff, I'll tell you or I won't, don't mean shit to a tree. Gobear rented a video of Hair, so he knows all about hippies, I kinda like Elton John music and John Wayne movies, so I know from gays. Its all apples and orangutans.

(Yeah, John Wayne. You didn't know?......)

AW, poor widdle Elucidator's upset. Hey, pal, you're not the only granola guy who's lived the hippie lifestyle. I did it a generation later than you, that's all. And you're not challenging my facts, you;re just yupset that i mentioned them.

Getting high while watching Yellow Submarine in 68 did not make you a revolutionary, Cinque. Or are you a Weatherman still on the run?

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 02:11 PM

Nope, I love Asheville. In fact I will try my best to move near there when I get out of college. The fact remains that Asheville is full of hippies. Not necessarily a bad thing unless you are the OP.

No problem, aeropl; folks who can cope with Lexington Ave are always welcome :D.

gobear, chill. You're stereotyping out the ass, and it's not good.

Daniel

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 02:15 PM

God how I hate that 'organic' phrase. No one does inorganic farming, unless you're talking about Mortons. Keep using 'organic' and I'll keep mocking you, dirty hippy!

That's cool; those of us who understand language will keep mocking you, you ignoramus, for thinking that a word may have only one definition.

Daniel

elucidator

12-08-2004, 02:20 PM

See, that's just what I mean. You toss around a couple of cliches like "Cinque" and "Weathermen" like you know something. Those Symbionese meatheads had squat to do with hippies, radical militants hated hippies more than Nixon did. It's like lumping Rasputin with Lenin because they're both Russian.

But look, clearly, you need a boost, ego is ouching, maybe the Rogaine ain't doing it, dunno. So, here, just for you...

Ooooh, such a stinging rejoinder, I'm cut to the quick by the sharp invective, writhing in pain on the floor, clutching my sides in, ah, agony. Agony, agony, agony.

There. Good deed for the day, didn't cost me a thing.

gobear

12-08-2004, 02:33 PM

No problem, aeropl; folks who can cope with Lexington Ave are always welcome :D.

gobear, chill. You're stereotyping out the ass, and it's not good.

Daniel

Explain how laying out historical facts is stereotyping. Hippies did not lead the civil rights movements or the anti-war movements, the two important areas of politocal struggle in the 1960s. They got a lot of press, but they played no significant role in the real activism of the day. I grow very tired of [b]"Luci" acting as if he and his aged cohorts were politically significant and that activism died when Woodstock ended.

gobear

12-08-2004, 02:48 PM

See, that's just what I mean. You toss around a couple of cliches like "Cinque" and "Weathermen" like you know something. Those Symbionese meatheads had squat to do with hippies, radical militants hated hippies more than Nixon did.

Of course you'd disavow the SLA because they don't fit the image you'd like to keep. Still, touche on the Weathermen.

But look, clearly, you need a boost, ego is ouching, maybe the Rogaine ain't doing it, dunno. So, here, just for you...

Ooooh, such a stinging rejoinder, I'm cut to the quick by the sharp invective, writhing in pain on the floor, clutching my sides in, ah, agony. Agony, agony, agony.

There. Good deed for the day, didn't cost me a thing.
Aw, I can feel the warm fuzzies.

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 03:02 PM

Hippies did not lead the civil rights movements or the anti-war movements, the two important areas of politocal struggle in the 1960s.

The Students for a Democratic Society didn't lead the anti-war movement? Or they weren't hippies? I don't get it.

And as for the civil-rights movement: yes, of course they didn't lead it, as hippiedom was a predominantly white social movement. Do men lead the feminist movement?

But a helluva lot of them were involved--such as my own parents, who worked in a Black Panther daycare center in the sixties.

Daniel

jlzania

12-08-2004, 03:15 PM

Left Hand of Dorkness- Or they weren't hippies?
They weren't hippies.

gobear

12-08-2004, 03:22 PM

The Students for a Democratic Society didn't lead the anti-war movement? Or they weren't hippies? I don't get it.
They weren't hippies. The Yippies were hippies, though. Alas for Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
[quote]
And as for the civil-rights movement: yes, of course they didn't lead it, as hippiedom was a predominantly white social movement. Do men lead the feminist movement?

But a helluva lot of them were involved--such as my own parents, who worked in a Black Panther daycare center in the sixties.

Daniel
[quote]
And you should be proud of them for their activism.

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 03:36 PM

Okay, so lemme get this straight. Hippies weren't involved in the antiwar movement in any significant fashion. And that's because you're defining anyone who was involved in a significant fashion as not a hippie. You're telling me the folks who coined "Make love, not war" weren't hippies?

I think you're working from a mighty different definition from the one I grew up with. If you simply define political activism out of hippiedom, then you're arguing a tautology.

Daniel

elucidator

12-08-2004, 04:11 PM

OK, I'll give this a shot. I'm gonna tell you a lie, as a way of telling you the truth. There was never any such thing as "hippies". Now, that's not quite true, but its pretty close.

There pretty much has always been a counter-culture, of one form or another. "Bohemians" morphed into "beatniks". The feature that most distinguished "hippies" from "beatniks" was enthusiasm, being weirdly different not as a statement of rejection, but for the sheer joy of it. Foolish and naive? No, because deliberately foolish, and willing to accept the consequences. To begin with, there were only a few dozen, mostly people in thier late twenties and early thirties who had spent far too much time in graduate school, who knew something was deeply, deeply wrong but had no answer, no agenda. Marxism was as empty as Objectivism, both founded on a ruthless rationalism that invariably fails because it isn't human, isn't humane. Some of the worse horrors the world has seen were committed by cold, sane, and rational men.

So....be crazy? But not miserably, mumbling crazy, hounded by voices and nameless demons, but simply irrational. And show it, live it, wear it on your very person. To be a "freak" by choice is to ask the question: what wrong with it?

When the tedia discovered the "hippies", they invented the hippies. Suddenly people were showing up to see the hippies. That's how the whole "spare change" trick happened: as long as your going to be bugged by straight people, you might as well get a buck or two, plus it shocks the living shit out of them! Begging horrified straight people, it was like admitting to having some repulsive disease, you half-expected them to pull out a crucifix to ward you off.

But the word got out, and people flocked to see the hippies, and other people flocked to be the hippies, and suddenly a minor social phenomenon bugeoned into a humanitarian disaster on a small scale. People like the Diggers sprang up not to scrounge free food and such for themselves, but for all the stupid fucking teeny-boppers who came flocking in expecting Paradise. Then, of course, suddenly, they were the hippies, because the other guys were too busy trying to take care of them!

But they were nothing like the originals. For one thing, they were younger. A lot younger. For another, they didn't experiment with drugs, they took drugs to get high, which is so different, I can't explain it. But the original people would no more take LSD to party on than you would serve canapes on a communion wafer.

And, no, I wasn't one of them, I saw them, I listened to them, in some cases I admired them, but was far too wise, far too ironic, ever to fling myself into deliberate naivete. And for the life of me, I can't even tell you if I regret it.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 04:16 PM

Okay, so lemme get this straight. Hippies weren't involved in the antiwar movement in any significant fashion. And that's because you're defining anyone who was involved in a significant fashion as not a hippie. You're telling me the folks who coined "Make love, not war" weren't hippies?

I don't think Gobear said that. He's arguing that the groups that had the most impact on social movements, particularly the antiwar movements, were not comprised of people who behaved in a hippie fashion. Regardless of how the movement started, a hippie is now largely recognized as someone who:

1. disdains all things Western usually simply because they are Western
2. adores all things Eastern usually simply because they are Eastern
3. Attempts to participate in social movements but is usually overcome with lethargy or is too addlebrained from drugs to do anything
4. Blames everyone else, particularly "Big corporate guys in suits" for thier failure to succeed in their social movement.
5. Has an unusual fondness for baggy clothes made from organic fibers and dyes, droning digerido/chime music, incense, smudge, and crystals.
6. Enjoys spouting off like they are so much smarter than people with different preferences

All six and you've got a hippie. Groups like the Students for a Democratic Society were not largely made up of people fitting this structure. The people who coined "Make Love, not War" just didn't have a big impact on actually stopping the war. The newscastors who brought the war into people's livingrooms changed public opinion.

About the farthest I've seen a realy hippy get is Congress. But some would argue that Neil Abercrombie (http://www.house.gov/abercrombie/) isn't a real hippie anymore.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 04:21 PM

But the word got out, and people flocked to see the hippies, and other people flocked to be the hippies, and suddenly a minor social phenomenon bugeoned into a humanitarian disaster on a small scale.

That's exactly what Gobear has been saying from the start!

They dug on love and peace and for a moment the movement was beautiful

gobear

12-08-2004, 04:30 PM

But they were nothing like the originals. For one thing, they were younger. A lot younger. For another, they didn't experiment with drugs, they took drugs to get high, which is so different, I can't explain it. But the original people would no more take LSD to party on than you would serve canapes on a communion wafer

You are preaching to the choir. The purpose of LSD is not to watch walls melt or watch red/green tracers follow your hands, but to go inside onself and expand the doors of perception, to shatter the ego and exist in a borderless universe where you and it are one and there is no self.

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 04:30 PM

I don't think Gobear said that. He's arguing that the groups that had the most impact on social movements, particularly the antiwar movements, were not comprised of people who behaved in a hippie fashion. Regardless of how the movement started, a hippie is now largely recognized as someone who:

1. disdains all things Western usually simply because they are Western
2. adores all things Eastern usually simply because they are Eastern
3. Attempts to participate in social movements but is usually overcome with lethargy or is too addlebrained from drugs to do anything
4. Blames everyone else, particularly "Big corporate guys in suits" for thier failure to succeed in their social movement.
5. Has an unusual fondness for baggy clothes made from organic fibers and dyes, droning digerido/chime music, incense, smudge, and crystals.
6. Enjoys spouting off like they are so much smarter than people with different preferences

All six and you've got a hippie.

Which is exactly what I said gobear did: he insulted hippies, and when called on it, redefined hippies only to include the people he was insulting. Your definition is bullshit, and is largely recognized by nobody I've met. Especially items number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. I'll give you 5.

Daniel

gobear

12-08-2004, 04:32 PM

Which is exactly what I said gobear did: he insulted hippies, and when called on it, redefined hippies only to include the people he was insulting. Your definition is bullshit, and is largely recognized by nobody I've met. Especially items number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. I'll give you 5.

Daniel

Bullshit and mendacity. Cite, please.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 04:34 PM

Your definition is bullshit, and is largely recognized by nobody I've met.
Daniel

Well, you're in Ashland.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 04:36 PM

Ashville. Sorry. Although probably equivalent to Ashland, Oregon.

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 04:42 PM

Bullshit and mendacity. Cite, please.

Hmm? Are you agreeing with me that his definition is bullshit, or are you calling my claim that his definition is bullshit bullshit?

Pullet the fact that I live around folks who describe themselves as hippies, am more familiar with them, is reason to give my opinion more weight, not less.

Someone might define goths as:
1) People who haven't outgrown adolescent angst.
2) People who think that they're vampires.
3) People who think that Ann Rice is the bestest writer ever.
4) People who think that wearing all black, just like all their friends, is the ultimate expression of nonconformity.
5) People who think that being happy is a sign of weakness.
6) People who think there's nothing sexier than tuberculosis.

That someone would be full of shit. The fact that I hang out with goths pretty often gives me a pretty good perspective from which to disagree with them.

Who do you hang out with? Yuppies? Rednecks? Suits? Geeks? Gimme a shot, and I'll talk some inaccurate shit about your friends.

Daniel

elucidator

12-08-2004, 04:54 PM

You are preaching to the choir. The purpose of LSD is not to watch walls melt or watch red/green tracers follow your hands, but to go inside onself and expand the doors of perception, to shatter the ego and exist in a borderless universe where you and it are one and there is no self.

Hell, can't tell if its irony or not, got his tongue in cheek? Only way to know is punch him in the chin and see if he bites off his tongue. Which would severely limit his, ah, self-expression, and I'd end up having to apologize either way.

Shit. I hate dilemmas.

(Note to LeftyDork: Goth thing= :D )

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 04:59 PM

(Note to LeftyDork: Goth thing= :D )

Heh. It may help that I was introduced to the ubercool San Francisco goth scene by a (tres goth) friend who taught me the Goth positive feedback loop:
-Go to a goth club and look for the ones who take themselves too seriously.
-Laugh at their pomposity.
-Your laughter makes them indignant.
-Their indignity is even funnier, so you laugh more.
-Eventually, they swell up and pop.

The goths I've known (at least, the ones that I hang out with) have a great sense of humor about themselves. Just like the hippies that I've hung out with. And neither group is very much like the stupid stereotypes that other folks attach to them.

But I do look forward to attacking Pullet's friends, as soon as he pigeonholes them for me.

Daniel

Pullet

12-08-2004, 05:24 PM

Left Hand of Dorkness:

1st: I'm a "she." "Pullet" is a term used to describe a young hen.

2nd: this is useless. Of course generalizations do not fit every single member of a group. The fact that someone tried to group them together at all means that they left out some people because

<fanfare>
people are different

so even if similar, no two people are going to have the exact same ideology, feelings, attitudes, or expression. There can be no attempt to draw similarities between them unless the differences are also left out. So, some people are left out.

I'd say your list of Goth characteristics is accurate in its way. There are Goths out there who match it exactly, Goths who only match part, people who have one side of their personallity that matches but another side that doesn't. That concept is one that I have recognized from the fucking beginning, that not every one in a group behaves in a given way. What I'm sick of is people unite themselves fully with a particular group without adequately researching the ideals, proposals, methods, etc common to that group. Now, does that mean that the group itself will have defined ideals and methods? No! People are freaking complicated! The social systems we invent are even more complicated! I appreciate that!

What I don't appreciate is your attitude. I've been arguing that I dislike idiots. When I started this post, it was a kind of idiot that had pissed me off. Since you joined, you've been upset simply by my use of a particular word to describe habits I have observed to be common to a particular group of people. I never presumed everyone had experience with this particular groupd of people. You don't like the term hippie. It's not PC. What name would you like to use now? I'm sure it will be just as insulting in a few years. As you so neatly pointed out, words can have more than one definition. And one definition can come to be prefered over time.

I'm well aware of the generalizations people draw about my friends. My friends are well aware of it. So long as others leave us alone, what do we care? Of course people are going to talk innacurate shit about your friends because no possible generalization could be completely accurate. What do you care? Am I hurting you with these pixels? Am I insinuating riot against them? No. And once more, because apparently I haven't been clear: I JUST DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO BE IDIOTS.

It doesn't seem like much to ask.

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-08-2004, 05:34 PM

Left Hand of Dorkness:

1st: I'm a "she." "Pullet" is a term used to describe a young hen.

Sorry; the loads of poppycock threw me.

2nd: this is useless. Of course generalizations do not fit every single member of a group.

Yep, that would be a problem with stereotypes; yep, they are useless. Still in agreement.

I've been arguing that I dislike idiots.

That's not a problem. What isa problem is your stereotyping of hippies, as in your six-point post above.

You don't like the term hippie. It's not PC. What name would you like to use now?

What are on you about now? I got no problem with the word "hippie." What I got a problem with is attaching ignorant stereotypes to it.

What do you care? Am I hurting you with these pixels?

No. What do you care what I say? I am always befuddled by people who imply, in posts interspersed with all-caps, that I'm taking the Internet too seriously. Et tu, Pullet?

As for wanting people not to be idiots: I wholeheartedly agree. And there are idiot hippies out there; believe me, as a resident of Asheville, I'm all too aware of this, like a resident of Tokyo is going to be aware of idiot Buddhists.

At the same time, a post about what "Idiot Buddhists" do is gonna strike me wrong.

Daniel

elucidator

12-08-2004, 05:48 PM

Idiot Buddhists:

1. Wants to be at two with the Universe
2. Thinks "Nirvana" would make a great name for a rock band.
3. Master Po would kick the living snot out of them, and they still wouldn't get it.
4. Wonders what color the Void is.

dre2xl

12-08-2004, 05:52 PM

1. disdains all things Western usually simply because they are Western
2. adores all things Eastern usually simply because they are Eastern
3. Attempts to participate in social movements but is usually overcome with lethargy or is too addlebrained from drugs to do anything
4. Blames everyone else, particularly "Big corporate guys in suits" for thier failure to succeed in their social movement.
...

I read the first four and thought of my university's anime club. :)

Pullet

12-08-2004, 06:05 PM

I got no problem with the word "hippie." What I got a problem with is attaching ignorant stereotypes to it.

Didn't I just argue that my "definition" of a hippie is bullshit along with all generalizations of behavioral similarities? I know my definition is bullshit. I recognize that. I embrace it.

This is the pit. If I wanted to debate about the goods and evils of stereotyping I'd have gone to GD.
When I started this thread, some idiots had pissed me off and I wanted to vent. I wasn't looking to denegrate all people everywhere. I used a term which, as I said, has a duality of accuracy and inaccuracy, because the term loosly fit the side of their personallity that I had experienced. Lay off.

As for wanting people not to be idiots: I wholeheartedly agree. And there are idiot hippies out there; believe me, as a resident of Asheville, I'm all too aware of this, like a resident of Tokyo is going to be aware of idiot Buddhists.

At the same time, a post about what "Idiot Buddhists" do is gonna strike me wrong.

I'm not generalizing that all hippies are idiots in what they do. I've said that from the start. If you can agree with me that sometimes, some members of a loosely and poorly defined group are irritating, then I don't know what we are arguing about. I didn't start this thread to smash the ideals of hippiedom in their entirety.

I think that's the third or fourth time I've said as much. Since I can't use all caps to make it clear, if you don't get it this time I'm giving up.

regards.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 06:20 PM

dre2xl, I thought the same thing :D Most of my guidelines could fit for a bunch of groups, so I had to add the bit about crystals and smudge.

<prepares for attact from the Left>

What am I doing wrong? Scribble was able to recognize from page 1 exactly where I was coming from. And I chimed right in when people started making cracks playing off of other overused stereotypes. Doesn't that show that I recognize the flaws with stereotypes? WTF?

gobear

12-08-2004, 06:37 PM

[QUOTE=elucidator]Hell, can't tell if its irony or not, got his tongue in cheek? Only way to know is punch him in the chin and see if he bites off his tongue. Which would severely limit his, ah, self-expression, and I'd end up having to apologize either way.

Shit. I hate dilemmas.
[/quote
Dead serious.

Yllaria

12-08-2004, 06:48 PM

Ah, Davis. Where angsty high school goths wear Birkenstocks. Where the Blue Mango Restaurant once made all decisions by consensus among the staff. (It's now a Hungarian Restaurant - with an owner.) Where the Food Co-op was accused of selling out when it moved to bigger digs with flourescent lighting. (There was much discussion on whether they should sell meat - they do - you can get your ostrich meat there.)

Davis is like nowhere else in California. It's not hippie so much as it's superior middle class, with the superior provided by various alternatives that have been added to the life style. A lot of people put a great deal of thought into improving their lives and their community with thoughtful alternatives. But some just have to have an alternative because everyone else in town does.

They'd be a different kind of idiot somewhere else. Damned Davis Doofuses.

Pullet

12-08-2004, 07:02 PM

I love you, Yllaria.

Chicken Kisses

elucidator

12-08-2004, 07:12 PM

...Chicken Kisses

I want to take this moment to commend you all for restraining the impulse to make "pecker" jokes. This shows commendable maturity.

kidchameleon

12-08-2004, 07:34 PM

You are preaching to the choir. The purpose of LSD is not to watch walls melt or watch red/green tracers follow your hands, but to go inside onself and expand the doors of perception, to shatter the ego and exist in a borderless universe where you and it are one and there is no self.

Bah, LSD is a chemical, a bunch of atoms interconnected, it has no 'purpose'.

kidchameleon

12-08-2004, 07:40 PM

Davis is like nowhere else in California. It's not hippie so much as it's superior middle class, with the superior provided by various alternatives that have been added to the life style. A lot of people put a great deal of thought into improving their lives and their community with thoughtful alternatives. But some just have to have an alternative because everyone else in town does.

They'd be a different kind of idiot somewhere else. Damned Davis Doofuses.

But lo, there is Murder Burger, it's very existance keeping Davis Doofuses as bay for at least 100ft. Did they manage to keep Borders from driving the poor local book retailers into bankrupcy?

Pullet

12-08-2004, 07:52 PM

But lo, there is Murder Burger, it's very existance keeping Davis Doofuses as bay for at least 100ft. Did they manage to keep Borders from driving the poor local book retailers into bankrupcy?

They wussed out and renamed Murder Burger "Redrum Burger," thus defeating their own stated goal of making the store more family friendly. Supposedly, because the store was not owned by the original people, even though the sale happened years ago, the new owners had to rename it a couple years back.:(

Three independent book stores survive yet. I like their atmosphere, but they never seem to have the book I'm looking for, so I end up at Borders anyway. sigh.

Scylla

12-08-2004, 08:51 PM

Hippies deserve the opprobrium scorn and contempt heaped upon them.

They have a lot to answer for. It was Hippies that ruined that otherwise great movie Billie Jack with those horribly painful "street theatre" scenes.

I had my doubts about Hippies during the town meeting scene when that 13 year old girl started talking (in a way that was also horribly painful to watch) about how she figured it was her sexuality that was upsetting the townies. I gave you guys the benefit of the doubt, over that. I figured it was just that one nut-job in every group.

After the street theatre bits, there could be no doubt, no defense of the hippies. Oh how I longed for the townies to burn the school and drive out the hippies!

Later they remade Billy Jack leaving out the hippies. What was left was called Rambo and it was good. No more scathing indictment of hippie culture need be made.

Not in all the intervening years have I heard a denouncement of Street theatre from the left.

Until you've answered for this there is no defense for the morally bankrupt hypocrisy of hippies.

Lest you think that was long ago, let me remind you that mimes evolved out of street theatre and even these days in war protests and such you hippies put on little symbolic plays.

Oh, no you don't! Not a chance, bunky, you ain't blaming mimes on us, by God. The utter collapse of sexual morality? Kinsey. The rise of depravity? Gays. The inculcation of collectivist values in our young? Big Bird. Deconstructionism? The French. The demise of respect for authority? THAT was us, and damn proud of it! We're Americans, we're revolutionarys, revolutionarys are supposed to undermine authority!

But not mimes! No sir!

Stretched on the rack with rodents gnawing my 'nads, I'll cop to crab lice, VD, bad acid, and In A Gadda Da Vida.

But not mimes! No fucking way are you pinning that on us!

elucidator

12-08-2004, 09:17 PM

Bah, LSD is a chemical, a bunch of atoms interconnected, it has no 'purpose'.

DNA is a chemical, a bunch of atoms interconnected, and it damn sure has a purpose.

Scylla

12-08-2004, 09:24 PM

You can deny it all you want, Elucidator. Mimes dress all in black with those funny little hats, like beatniks.

Mimes are street theatre. We technocrats on the right did away with Street theatre by inventing the Tv. You brought it back.

As a youth, I enjoyed drugs, loose women, and a morally superior self-indulgent fleeing from responsibility. I enjoyed criticicizing things I didn't know about as much as the next guy.

But you guys brought back street theatre.

You show me one right-wing mime, just one and I'll offer you the benefit of the doubt.

The fact is that every fucking single mime that ever lived is a lefty. It's your fault.

The prosecution rests.

elucidator

12-08-2004, 09:39 PM

Oh, yeah? Well, then, who says: "You have the right to remain silent..."?

A hippy or the authoritarian power figure of the repressive crypto-fascist state?

Peace on you!

elucidator

12-08-2004, 09:44 PM

...You show me one right-wing mime, just one and I'll offer you the benefit of the doubt....

Ha! Gotcha! Karl Rove! (Ventriloquism is a form of mime! Is too!)

gobear

12-08-2004, 09:52 PM

The sad thing is, as much as I want to smack 'Luci around and go down on Scylla, 'luci is the guy I have to side with these days.

Fuck, I hate Dubya for not letting me be a conservative any more.

Yookeroo

12-08-2004, 11:11 PM

You are preaching to the choir. The purpose of LSD is not to watch walls melt or watch red/green tracers follow your hands, but to go inside onself and expand the doors of perception, to shatter the ego and exist in a borderless universe where you and it are one and there is no self.

What's wrong with melting walls and tracers? Ain't nothing wrong with recreational use of LSD if that's what one enjoys.

duffer

12-09-2004, 12:52 AM

Oh, yeah? Well, then, who says: "You have the right to remain silent..."?

A hippy or the authoritarian power figure of the repressive crypto-fascist state?

Peace on you!

Yeah, get rid of the Miranda Warning! That'll help bring peace and goodwill. :rolleyes:

Scylla, I never made the connection between Billy Jack and Rambo before. Nice linking. I've gone from disdain for hippies to a setthing, blood-boiling hatred of them. Great analogy. :D

Squink

12-09-2004, 01:50 AM

I've gone from disdain for hippies to a setthing, blood-boiling hatred of them. Great analogy. :D
Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend...

El Cid Viscoso

12-09-2004, 03:11 AM

Hippies deserve the opprobrium scorn and contempt heaped upon them.

They have a lot to answer for. It was Hippies that ruined that otherwise great movie Billie Jack with those horribly painful "street theatre" scenes...

Oh how I longed for the townies to burn the school and drive out the hippies!This really cracks me up.

Haven't you ever heard of a "MacGuffin"? See, fool, the Hippies were a plot device. They were somethin' shiny for y'all to watch while the ignant townfolk beat the stuffing out of them Indians and turned their horses into Alpo.

To oversimplify, in a way, the Hippies in Billy Jack are kind of like Trinculo, the jester in The Tempest. Or like Kramer on Seinfeld. They keeps the reg'lar folk from gettin' too d'pressed and outta sorts.

Silly Cutter.

El Cid Viscoso

12-09-2004, 04:15 AM

The purpose of LSD is not to watch walls melt or watch red/green tracers follow your hands, but to go inside onself and expand the doors of perception, to shatter the ego and exist in a borderless universe where you and it are one and there is no self.
Dead serious.You'd better be some kind of Space Coyote.

What's wrong with melting walls and tracers? Ain't nothing wrong with recreational use of LSD if that's what one enjoys.

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with it if that's what you enjoy. Doesn't make you a burnout or a loser.

Too bad you can only experience it every 5 years or so. All the chemists are dead or not able to do it anymore for one reason or another. :(

Yllaria

12-09-2004, 12:59 PM

Did they manage to . . .

Hey, I never said they were effective doofuses. What folks in Davis do best is talk . . . at length. But sometimes they get things done.

The toad tunnel got installed. (Long story, and not nearly as stupid in the beginning as it was at the end.)

The statue of the joggers was relocated so that the pointing finger wouldn't put anyone's eye out.

And on a more positive note, the human-powered carosel got installed in Central Park. (I think that thing is totally cool and very, very Davis.)

kidchameleon

12-09-2004, 01:43 PM

DNA is a chemical, a bunch of atoms interconnected, and it damn sure has a purpose.

Eh? Only if you think that there is a plan for the universe....

Scylla

12-09-2004, 08:10 PM

Karl Rove is a ventriloquist????

That's your example of a mime?

First off, Mimes are silent. That's what makes them Mimes. The not talking. Ventriloquists talk.

Quad et Demonstratum: Ventriloquists are not Mimes.

Besides, we are not talking about figurative Mimes, or figurative ventriloquists, whether figuratively speaking Karl Rove is a ventriloquist, or not.

I am talking real Mimes. The kind that follow you in malls and try to escape from behind make beleive glass. The kind that follow you and imitate your walk.

Real Mimes.

You people, you fucking hippies are responsible for them. I understand that you are in denial. I understand that this revelation rocks your worldview.

The thing to do is to stand up, be a man, and apologize for street theatre on behalf of the entire counterculture. You need to say you're sorry. You need to face what you have wrought. Only then can the healing begin.

El Cid Viscoso

12-09-2004, 08:28 PM

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Yllaria

12-09-2004, 08:35 PM

Sorry, but didn't mimes predate hippies? By a good bit?

Not that this arguement isn't fun. If you want to ignore ancient mimage and just continue, be my guest.

Pullet - were you around when they shot Crossbreed the escaped steer in front of Mrak Hall? Talk about a Davis tempest.

elucidator

12-09-2004, 09:23 PM

Exactly so! The horror and depravity of the "invisible box" bit goes back to ancient times, at least in the Hebraic tradition. Don't try to tell me you never heard of King Solomon's Mimes?

Pullet

12-09-2004, 09:29 PM

Pullet - were you around when they shot Crossbreed the escaped steer in front of Mrak Hall? Talk about a Davis tempest.

No! Holy Cow!

Pullet

12-09-2004, 09:30 PM

King Solomon's Mimes?

Ah, the agony agony.

It hurts. See? I'm hurting

:)

Left Hand of Dorkness

12-10-2004, 09:13 AM

Come gather 'round hippies
Wherever you roam
And admit that the glass walls
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be trapped all alone.
If your voice to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start talkin
Or you'll be mute as a stone
For the mimes they are a-changin'.

Huh. Maybe Scylla's right.
Daniel

elucidator

12-10-2004, 09:55 AM

Bound to happen sometime.

Yookeroo

12-10-2004, 01:29 PM

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with it if that's what you enjoy. Doesn't make you a burnout or a loser.

Too bad you can only experience it every 5 years or so. All the chemists are dead or not able to do it anymore for one reason or another. :(

:mad: Doesn't that just totally suck?

duffer

12-11-2004, 12:18 AM

Exactly so! The horror and depravity of the "invisible box" bit goes back to ancient times, at least in the Hebraic tradition. Don't try to tell me you never heard of King Solomon's Mimes?

And a hush fell across the room. Shortly after teh agonized groans of the gallery were heard the world over. ;)

Yllaria

12-11-2004, 02:27 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yllaria

Pullet - were you around when they shot Crossbreed the escaped steer in front of Mrak Hall? Talk about a Davis tempest.

No! Holy Cow!

I'm trying to think of a way to do justice to this story. Shortest version - an escaped steer was shot by campus police on the lawn between Mrak Hall (the UCD Admin building) and Putah Creek. Much talk and hand waving ensued.

The first information given to the public was confused due to a conflict of spins between student animal lovers and the university administration.

The animal was a bull. The animal was a steer.

It was running down the arboretum path and had menaced passers-by and a baby carriage. It was standing still, but it was near lunch and a herd of, let's say agriculturally challenged* students and secretaries were about to pour out of the building.

The police had to shoot it. Animal Control should have captured it. And on and on.

Then a columnist from the Sac Bee did some phoning. Unlike the Davis press, he called both the owner of the steer (it was a steer - a crossbreed between a brahma and something else) and the Cole Facility (from which the animal had escaped). He wrote an absolutely hilarious send-up of both the event and the Davis reaction and coverage.

Seems the steer was at the Cole Facility for a carcass summary, to see how that particular cross put on meat under a specific feed regimen. Seems the owner was with it and had given the police permission to shoot it. Seems even capturing it humanely wouldn't have bought it more than, say half and hour.

And it seems that Animal Control had no alternate way of dealing with the animal beyond, as the columnist suggested, "herding it downtown to the jogging statue in hopes that it would put it's eye out". I was eating lunch with the Animal Control guys at the time and read the column to them out loud. When I got to that line, I nearly choked on my tongue laughing. They loved it.

They also tried to get the university to buy them a dart gun with nicotine darts, which they said was the quickest, safest way to kill a large animal - with the bonus that casual watchers might think it was just sedated. The university didn't go for it.

Oh, and it had been just standing there. No menacing involved other than being big and horned.

*As evidence of agricultural challenge: Animal Control had, the month previous, gotten a phone call from an earnest freshman reporting that some of the ducks in Mrak Pond were beating up smaller ducks and that they should go put a stop to it. (For the city folk amoung us - ducks aren't gentlemanly when they mate.)

Squink

12-11-2004, 02:51 AM

It was running down the arboretum path and had menaced passers-by and a baby carriage. It was standing still, but it was near lunch and a herd of, let's say agriculturally challenged* students and secretaries were about to pour out of the building. Was there a city councilwoman running around in a carrot costume?

indecisive1

12-11-2004, 05:53 AM

Seems the steer was at the Cole Facility for a carcass summary, to see how that particular cross put on meat under a specific feed regimen.

Was it an all-natural, chemical-free diet?

kidchameleon

12-11-2004, 09:15 AM

The first information given to the public was confused due to a conflict of spins between student animal lovers and the university administration.

You'd think that after living in Segundo, the smell of the cow barns would diminish sympathy for the cows. I certainly cared less about the pigs after having a math class out by the stys in the hot summer weather.

Razishlyat

12-11-2004, 09:40 AM

100% card carrying hippie here, I even smoke American Spirits.

I'm tired of hearing that everything from "natural" sources is far superior to synthetic while there is no debate over whether the damn product works or not. I'm tired of hearing that a "natural" source is safer or "chemical free." Everything is made of chemicals, you. idiot.
Now, this is unfair. There are several reasons hippies prefer natural products, and there are many cases where they prefer synthetic products.

First of all, there is the whole naturalist aspect of it. Many people feel more comfortable wearing a pair of natural hemp pants than they do synthetic nylon ones :-p

Second, one part of the hippie community, those that live in communes, like to be self-sustaining.

Third, when some day someone figures out how to make synthetic meat, there will be a vast divide between the vegan hippies and omnivorous hippies.

Fourth, the reasoning behind "natural" or "free range" or whatever products is actually rather valid. Much mass market meat these days comes from hormone injected stock bred mutants of animals. Similar to the reason I hate those assholes who breed cats and dogs for fashion and the little thing can't walk and disintegrates instantly in sunlight (if it ever sees it in its short lifetime), I just like being nice to animals. And you've clearly never been to a mass pig farm, the ones where they keep them in cages stacked on top of each other stuffing them, letting them crap on each other, and having that flow off into water supplies (I remember this happening in South Carolina in the late '90s, there was a breakout of disease from the pig farms)

Fifth, as far as natural veggies go, well, quite frankly, we've been genetically engineering food since the day we figured out that planting something makes it grow. Everything from maize to peas to potatoes has been engineered to be bigger and better for the past 10,000 years. Now we're just adding in some other genes. The worry there is mostly that we're creating long-term health hazards (see: lead piping).

I'm tired of hearing about holistic medicine. Yes, valuable medicinal compounds have been isolated from naturally occuring sources, but once isolated, why use the diluted natural source? Why not take the synthetic that you know actually does something instead of it with 20 other compounds that don't?
... I dunno. I was raised in southern California, where when you were out in the summer you broke off a bit of an aloe vera plant and gooped your skin. I recall being treated rather well by a nice cup of distasteful yet amazingly helpful tea. Yea, I could go to the store and buy cold medicine, but why do that when there is a natural alternative that is cheaper?

Plus, you have to remember that hippies are against giant mega-corporations. The medical industry in America is one of those. If something is natural and free, it is certainly better than whatever Pfizer puts out.

I'm tired of hearing about veggetarian/veganism. Biologically I am an omnivore. We don't know enough about the human body to go messing with its requirements so why don't you just follow the system that worked for the last 10 thousand years you pompous bitch.
I don't get vegetarianism either, so I can't comment here.

I'm tired of hearing about the evils of farming.
Hippies are anti-farming? I must have missed that in the newsletter.

I'm tired of being made to feel guilty for crimes done by people with the same skin tone as me. I wasn't there. In most cases, I wasn't even born yet. Moreover, my family didn't have anything to do with it. Leave me alone!
I assume you're talking about slavery... or the Indian genocide... I must have missed that newsletter too. It isn't so much making you feel guilty, as remembering where we've come from and what we might revert back to.

Pullet

12-12-2004, 02:52 AM

Dear Razishlyat,

I know four pages is a lot to read, but if you had you would have saved yourself some time.

I'm not against hippies. Left_Hand_of_Dorkness and I went around and around with this for some time, on this very page even. What I'm against are idiots who don't research what they believe before they start proselytizing. See my previous example of the man, the cat, and the eucalyptus oil. From time to time, it is idiots of the hippie breed that piss me off. Hence, this thread. But, I do not discriminate between idiots.

If you like, I will address your message directly:

Many people feel more comfortable wearing a pair of natural hemp pants than they do synthetic nylon ones

Hemp is not the only natural fiber. I wear cotton all the time. I knit with wool from three different animals. I don't care about their clothing preferences.

those that live in communes
Are safely secured away from me, so I don't care.

Much mass market meat these days comes from hormone injected stock bred mutants of animals.
Actually, hormone injection is not all that common because it increases the cost of production and labor. If you don't make your money back, it's not worth doing. Many farmers don't. Even on dairies, where hormone use is slightly more common, owners are more likey only to supplement only their best cow in order to get the most out of her they can. The problem, though, is then they have to label all their milk as bST supplemented because they don't seperate out that cow's milk from all the cows who didn't have the hormone. But, see previous posts about the bST not actually occuring in higher levels, yadda yadda yadda.

And you've clearly never been to a mass pig farm, the ones where they keep them in cages stacked on top of each other stuffing them, letting them crap on each other, and having that flow off into water supplies

Yes, I have. I've even seen intensive egg-laying poultry farming. Pigs are not kept in the manner you describe, not even intensively. Egg-laying hens are kept in stacking cages, but they are prevented from defecate on one another (usually by placing a metal sheet between the cages) to prevent the spread of disease. Producers with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in animals are going to do everything they can to keep them healthy. The creepiest places I've seen are small producers who don't know what a bird in respiratory distress looks like, so the bird just suffers and dies and makes all it's neighbors sick too. Also, good producers aren't going to let their waste ponds run into the water system if they can help it. I doubt the farms you heard about are still in business.

And "free range" does not always equal nicer for the animals. This cite (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=8050075) talks about birds unfit to go for meat because of various reasons. The farm type with the highest condemnation rates were those that raise their birds on vegetarian diets. But, you'll also notice that birds from free-range farms were condemned partly for mutilation. The buggers tear each other apart when they're in groups of more than 10.

The worry there is mostly that we're creating long-term health hazards (see: lead piping)
Actually the story of Romans going crazy because of lead poisoning
has been debated. (http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html)

Yea, I could go to the store and buy cold medicine, but why do that when there is a natural alternative that is cheaper?

How do you know the tea cured you?

If something is natural and free, it is certainly better than whatever Pfizer puts out

Really? If part of what makes it better is that it works, then why didn't Pfizer find out? Poor bastards wasted a lot of money when what they could be using wouldn't cost them.